Aga’s Highland Tap

It is difficult for me to feel comfortable in any strip club, nevertheless a strip bar that is a reflection of Boston’s struggling Dudley Square. The silver lining of this bar are the owners. This has been a family business for over 60 years – through the good times and the bad. Bar is kept by Alice, who may be in her 70’s, and her son, both of whom are kind people.
That aside, most Unilocal readers would feel very uncomfortable here. It is a dark, seedy, bar with bikini dancers and neon lights – it is straight out of a Tarantino movie or some sort of film noir. It really isn’t a «dive bar» in the charming sense of the term. This isn’t the kind place, like the Silhouette in Allston, that is ironically funny to patronize. It is a bar that is successfully adapting to survive in a neighborhood that was hit harder by urban decay than any other district in the city. I was at Aga’s right after it opened for the evening. I am fascinated to see what it looks like around midnight, but don’t plan on finding out.
Case in point, I am blown away by the perseverance and hard work of this family business, but simultaneously would not recommend this bar to a typical Unilocal reader. I recommend this bar to a reader who is exceptionally street smart and wants to see a type of «dive bar» that rarely exist in metro Boston and that serves as an drinking establishment in a neighborhood where none other exists.